


some things were meant to be

by doubtthestars



Series: 12 days of christmas gift fics [1]
Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-07 02:42:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8779975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doubtthestars/pseuds/doubtthestars
Summary: Part of my christmas gift fic requests:Marks only come after your match experiences a significant event in their lives. They form around the base of your hand's ring fingers. In 2007, Kuba and Lewy get their right hand mark but they don't realize how they are connected until everyone ends up in Germany.





	

**Author's Note:**

> spot the unintentional onerepublic lyrics 
> 
> So I wanted to get this one out on Kuba's birthday and I technically did, at least in my timezone. There isn't actually, er, romance involved (yet?) in this fic between Kuba, Lukasz, and Robert. It's mostly figuring out their feelings and all that entails within the soulmates AU.
> 
> I might expand on this fic tbh. Thanks to Amber for the feedback!

**2007**

The rings feel heavy on his fingers. He could’ve just worn the gloves. It was cold enough to not seem out of place. Robert had been wearing the flimsy plastic rings they sold at drugstores since he was eight years old but once he had signed a contract with Legia, he had moved to the silicone kind, solid bands in whatever color he could find in between pulling on his clothes in the morning and Milena hogging the bathroom.

Pruszkow had been promoted to the second division and Robert could feel there was a imminent change coming so he wasn’t surprised when he woke up one morning with his right hand showing a red ring around the base of his finger. Both of his marks were more on the natural side. His right looked like he had scraped the skin, blood just under the surface of healing skin. His left had been bruised before settling into a scar line uninterrupted around his finger. Robert had wondered what event had triggered the marks, what sort of people they were to leave such marks on his skin.

His mother had only taken his hands in hers for a moment before sighing and hugging him like he was small again.

“We should go to the store. Get you new rings for a new match.” She murmured. Robert could only agree to try to change the melancholic tone in her voice. He didn’t want to ask in case it brought painful memories back. It had only been two years since his father had passed away and Robert had tried his hardest to be her support, to be responsible and serious for both his sister and mother.

So he had gone, staring down displays of different kinds of cover rings trying his best to not feel intimidated by all the choices. He hadn’t wanted to go for any metals. His father had had an old silver band on his left hand. Robert had never asked if he had another mark besides his mother’s and he had never found out. He picked out two resin rings durable and wide enough to cover his marks. The faceted cut of the ring distorted his marks but didn’t hide the evidence of them.

His mother had always said back in her day, no one would hide their marks. It was much easier to find your match that way. But Robert lived in the now and privacy was rarely afforded in this day and age. He rubbed the inside of his new ring with his thumb, the cold making its way into his bones.  
He could wear the gloves, but he really didn’t want to.

-  
Kuba had found himself in Germany without Uncle Jurek to guide him. It was a different world being at Dortmund. He could reinvent himself without the shadow of the past hanging over him. His new jersey only said Kuba rather than Blaszczykowski and he kept his marks taped up when out of his apartment. The move felt right, had felt like the next step to his career. Poland would always hold too much of him back. He had to be a certain Jakub in order to succeed in Krakow but in Germany no one had to find little Jakub Blaszczykowski.

He could just be Kuba.

-  
Lukasz had been disappointed at first with the loan. He had ended back up in Poland where he started but after three years in Zagłębie he had settled his angry edges and managed to show his potential enough to attract the attention of the National Team. It was all he wanted, even if it was a friendly and a trial run. He smiled at the trainers and his teammates and wondered if this is what it meant to be truly happy, to truly belong on the field.

He hoped so.

**2010**

Lukasz always felt like smiling around Jakub, if only to rid him of the sour face he had on when things didn’t go according to plan. It had only barely been half a season and he already knew how best to handle Kuba in his various states. Their first conversation had somehow sparked enough camaraderie to catch fire.

_“Jakub,” Lukasz extends his hand politely to shake. Kuba’s face dips slowly, becoming furrowed and confused as the seconds went by. Lukasz looked him over, worried on how he could’ve made a bad impression already. They hadn’t seen each other since Lukasz came back to Hertha and had been called up a handful of times together for the National Team but they were going to be teammates now. It was different than being forced into the same circles._

_“No one calls me Jakub here.” He clarifies before shaking his hand shortly and with a strong grip. Lukasz loses the tension he’s been holding since the stare down._

_“Oh, well, I’m Polish just like you. I can handle Jakub better than foreigners.” Kuba gives him an inch of a smile, barely formed at the corner of his mouth. He tacks more on before the Kuba has the chance to respond._

_“And I’m your elder.” Jakub snorts like a horse, shaking his head and darting his eyes up and away as if to roll them but not quite managing the effort.  
“Sure, Piszczek.” Lukasz knocks a hand into his shoulder just enough to jostle Jakub._

_“See, already it’s much better being in proper company.” That gets him a full smile before he gets called away by another teammate to be introduced, being yelled at by Kevin for spending time gossiping in Polish._

He had hope that Dortmund would be different, would feel more his than Berlin. Lukasz wanted to find a home in a team and he had felt that welcome between Kuba and the rest of the team. 

-  
Robert had always been intrigued by the various ways a mark can form. He had been the first in his friend group to get one and that had made him pay close attention to the hints and outright displayed marks during his youth team years and here in Dortmund. Anna had always told him it would get him in trouble one day, to so shamelessly oogle. It was probably why Kuba disliked him from the start.

Or maybe he just didn’t like Robert trying to catch Lukasz’ attention.

-  
The armband makes him hyper-aware of eyes on him. Smuda was giving him this test. Had told him it could be his if he wanted it in a few years, had seen the potential in him for a great leader. Kuba had almost puked afterwards, getting out of the office straight to the washroom. He should be happy, but instead his reflection looks terrified and pale. It was an honor, his uncle had always told him. It was not easy, but it was an honor.

He doesn’t breathe properly until Robert nets the first goal nineteen minutes in.

**2012**

Winning the double is much better than he expected. Kuba is settled, content to be part of the team to win but more importantly knowing what he had to do. He had talked to his grandmother, his uncle, and Dawid. It had been two years of grappling with the issue. It had been a lifetime if he was being honest. Smuda had made good on his words and he was going to lead Poland to the Euro on their home soil.

In the turmoil of finding out who his right hand and left belonged to, in the middle of knowing he could not face his mother’s killer, Kuba decided he had to be more. It was time to get the Blaszczykowski name back from ghosts and he could do it. Kuba could be captain with that name on his back for Poland, for Dortmund, for his mother.  
Winning the double tells him he is capable.

“Your right hand compliments and your left challenges you, Jakub.” His grandmother reminded him again and again as he shared stories of the team. She was the wisest woman he knew and had probably guessed what he hadn’t admitted to in the two years he had known Lukasz and Robert.

For the three of them to be so entwined was startling. He had figured out they were his matches by the end of 2010 but hadn’t been sure of their other marks until the beginning of this season. There wasn’t a rule that said they all had to have matching marks. Robert could’ve had his mark and Anna’s for all he had known in the beginning.

But he should’ve guessed, with the way Robert searched for Lukasz yet never said anything to the effect of being his match. So Jakub hadn’t either, knowing they were both unaware of being his match, careful to tape them up before he even got to training.

It was the day he decided on his course of action, of coming clean that he got the call. The old nightmare had died. His father had died. 

He didn’t feel very brave after that. All the parts that had settled inside him shook apart like the snow swirling in a globe. Jakub had to tell them he would arrive to training camp late instead of putting to rest the issue of being their match, the hollow in his chest splintering as Robert and Lukasz said they would spread the word for him, that they would be there for him in this time.

-  
Robert was right in front of Kuba when he hits in the equalizer. The Russian goalie unable to do anything as it goes past. He turns to yell and scream and celebrate with him but Jakub isn’t looking at the net or him or the crowd. He’s looking up in rapture, arms up. Robert gets goosebumps for as long as the moment stretches until the roar comes back into his ears and Kuba is already tearing across the field to the corner post, kissing the eagle on his chest and sliding on his knees. The bench and trainers all scurry to meet him, to engulf him.

He jogs behind, waiting for his turn.

-  
The campaign on home soil ends with only three matches. They crash out with not enough points to keep going. Lukasz is disappointed they couldn’t do more, especially with Kuba hanging in the balance of newly-minted captain of a budding Polish team. He had suffered enough to add their elimination onto it. But there was something brewing, some static cling that made Lukasz rethink every move like a chess master who couldn’t see the big picture. If Kuba shone as captain than Robert was the shadow dogging his steps.

Lukasz wasn’t stupid .

**2013**

The new year hadn’t been kind, a certain disquiet under his skin. Getting injured in training only topped the cake, losing the captain armband to Lewy was the straw that broke him.  
“Is this what you’re challenging me for?” Kuba is quiet in his anger, sitting on the physio table. He shouldn’t lash out because of the faults of his body but this had been coming since Zorc’s announcement in February. Robert took a step back, just enough space that a swing would miss, not that he would.

“What?” It doesn’t sound like a question, flat without feeling. He had had a smile on his face when he first entered the room to ask Kuba a question.

“Why haven’t you told Lukasz you’re his match?” Kuba steamrolls past the guilt pooling at the bottom of his lungs. The tightness of his skin wouldn’t let him breathe until he said what he needed to say. Robert flared his nostrils, but gave nothing else away.

“We’re not animals. Anyone with eyes can see you’re in love with him. A match isn’t a guarantee for anything.” Kuba wanted to laugh, he knew that better than most and it dug at his brain like a pick. He had never believed in the magic of matches, not with his family history. He had been willing to ignore the fact that he was bound for them for as long as marks matched, if they only hadn’t been so persistent in carving a place for themselves in his life, in Dortmund. That perfect picture had been put askew when the news of Robert not renewing his contract reached them. 

“We both have Lukasz as our right.” He rips off the tape of his right ring finger.

“What?” That was real, Robert’s face stunned at the revelation. “I’m his left, and you’re-” 

Kuba takes the tape from his left hand off before he finished the sentence and watches as Robert pales with fury. The secret was out and Kuba deflated, exhausted and aching from more than his injuries. The captaincy wasn’t the only thing Robert could steal away from him, if he wanted.

“You-” Robert swallows loudly, the lighting in the room making him look severe, shadowed cheeks highlighting all the angles of his face, “You knew and didn’t say a word until it was too late.” He shook his head and looked crestfallen instead of imperious.

Kuba stopped trying to catalogue what emotion Robert was feeling.

“I’m not-I’m not the one in the wrong here. I didn’t tell Lukasz because I know when to take my chances, Kuba. They love you out there, but not as much as he does.” Kuba only sees Robert touch the armband like a talisman because he is tired of looking into his eyes. The ring he wears matches the colors of their kit, swirling white shot through with red.  
“Don’t be too late with him.” His voice wavers just a bit before he walks out of the room.

Kuba wants to call him back but knows it wouldn’t be worth anything now. He scrubs at his face with his naked hands and bites down on a scream. They had to figure this out together or watch it all fall apart.

-  
Lukasz finds out the extent of the cold war between Robert and Jakub on a Wednesday. The pitch is wet from the rain but not yet soggy. He watches Lewy on the sidelines, running with Marco and Mats. Kuba is inside with the weights and he thinks it’s an apt metaphor. Lukasz won’t ask Robert to stay.

But he does ask him something after practice. He thinks he deserves at least one question answered after all the hiding and silence from both Kuba and Lewy.

“Why are you leaving?” Robert latches onto his bare hands with a sweeping look ending up on his face. Lukasz had been wearing gloves out but didn’t waste time covering his marks. It would be pointless in front of his match. He might’ve done it out of spite of the situation but kept that nagging thought to himself.

“I don’t belong here, not like you and Kuba.” Robert says it like he believes it, like it’s a fact of life or a rule the team had adopted. Lukasz feels sick with dread and angry that Robert was running from both of them because of _football_. He takes his hand and tugs him forward into his arms. All he had ever wanted was to play football and somehow had managed to be lucky enough to do so with both of his soulmates, but now it was all going to change. 

“You’re both so stubborn.” Lukasz knows this is the danger in finding a home within a team. You never know when they’ll leave.

-  
“What are you doing.” Marco huffs, “Besides being colossally stupid, I mean.”

They were sharing a room for the away match and all Robert wanted was some sleep. His body felt heavy and stiff all of the day, not wanting to cooperate through easy drills and much less kicking a ball right. He sat up disgruntled and raring for a fight. He could be just as petty and mean when he needed to be. Marco wasn’t the only one who could do tough love.

“Who’s your left hand, Marco?” Robert spits out, anger curling in his stomach along with bile. His mother would’ve been ashamed of him for making Marco recoil, his hand flinching back behind him as if to hide the mark further. The team had respected their privacy as best they could, but Mario and Marco had been painfully obvious. 

“You don’t have to say it. You’re mismatched with him, right?” He tries to soften the blow of his words but knows Marco won’t forgive him for a while yet for the intrusion. Lewy had always kept track of the developments in the team. 

It was how he know Aubameyang had Marco’s other hand. What a clusterfuck of a fairytale Dortmund had going for its players. Robert ran a hand through his hair and breathed out in an attempt to calm down. He tried not to think that he had picked that move up from Kuba. He wasn’t mad at Marco. He wasn’t mad at anyone. It was the hand they had been dealt, literally. Being someone’s left was complicated enough without the added confusion of them being your right, the traditional hand of marriage and romance.

“I’m both their lefts.” He turns off the lamp and leaves it clear that there would be no more discussion for the night.

“Oh,” Robert hears before he burrows under the covers and curls on his side.

**2015**

Lukasz spends an inordinate amount of time telling himself it would be alright that summer. Jakub being loaned out wouldn’t be the end of the world but he had been feeling off-kilter since Klopp had left and it wouldn’t get any better with the recent rumors circling. He tried to keep his optimism afloat with this new manager. He still had a spot in Dortmund even at thirty. There was no reason to feel like he was grasping at sand while the ocean tried to pull him back under.

“Just focus on training up, at least it isn’t three years you know?” Lukasz jokes because he still remembers the infinite stretch of his loan spell. He hears a slow exhale over the line.  
“You’re right, the Euro is more important.” Lukasz bites his lip because he knows having a goal is better than dwelling on his situation for Kuba but that isn’t what he wanted for him.

“Jakub, you know,” He hesitates, “I have faith that you will be ready for it, for anything.” Lukasz doesn’t believe like Robert or Kuba, doesn’t hold his daily life under the scope of a higher being’s judgement. He does the best he can with what he has, leads the life he’s wanted since he was small and was thankful for it. But there was nothing like finding a small piece of worth in other people. It was that faith that had gone unshaken in Lukasz.

“I will be, but I still won’t get the captaincy back.” He didn’t sound as bitter about the topic as he usually did and Lukasz took it as a good sign. It would be mended before they knew it.

“It’s the natural order of things, you got injured and Nawalka had to appoint somebody. You’re the one reading into it.” Lukasz blithely skips over the old arguments to make his points. Kuba had been a good captain but Poland needed a unified team more than a feud over the captaincy. Adam wouldn’t be happy with friction.

“He wants to keep it. I know he does, with or without me injured.” Lukasz rolled his eyes.

“Do you blame him for that? Half the country that has ever had a ball at their feet wants it in a misguided attempt to fix our tactics or just plain foolhardiness. I’m sure Kamil would try it out given the chance.” Kuba smothers down a laugh.

“Kamil could certainly try but he would be left without words for rousing speeches.” Lukasz agreed that Kamil would probably rouse snores more likely but he couldn’t leave the subject unfinished.

“My point is, why vilify Robert for what he is capable of in your steed.” Lukasz’ heart pounds harder, nerves aware that it was the first time either of them had mentioned him by name.

“It isn’t in my steed. You could give it to Kamil or Tomasz or even Krychowiak and they would see it as temporary, but he refuses. You wouldn’t do that.” Lukasz laughs because Kuba still managed to uphold everyone else to his standard without meaning to. They were both stubborn and stupid.

“I was never meant for it. Not like you two.”

-  
No one bothers to ask about his marks at Bayern except for Thomas. 

“Those look like they hurt.” He nods at his hands. Robert had just gotten out of the showers and hadn’t yet put his rings back on. He had been more careful with covering his marks since Dortmund but it was freeing to not have to worry about anyone on this team connecting the dots. Thomas didn’t seem to share the privacy concern much to the chagrin of the Bayern press control.

Robert looks down at the paler skin around his ring fingers. They didn’t hurt really, not in that sense, but he doubted Thomas would understand with his strangely freckled right and clean white cross on the left. He thinks Thomas would probably leave it alone if he told him to, but they were birds of a feather, always too observant for their own good.

“They did, but not anymore.”

Xabi had been the next to touch on it.

“My brother was convinced he had my mark when we were younger.” They were on the bench and Xabi had meandered he way to a point that hadn’t yet been clear. Xabi had gone from congratulating him on another personal best to sharing this.

“And did he?” It wasn’t uncommon to share a mark with a family member. He thought Thiago might have mentioned it once with his brother.

“It would be one in a million if it was. Alonsos aren’t in the habit of having more than one mark and I don’t have his. But Mikel insisted his mark came in the day I first got on a pitch.” Robert shook his head. That was the problem--he was confusing causation with correlation.

“I believed him for a while, waiting for the remarkable event that would manifest his mark, but my brother is a boring man and I found my match later on.” He twists the shiny metal ring on his finger. “I think I wanted to believe him because it would be simple, uncomplicated. I would have football and never have to leave home.”

“But you did and you won leagues and titles with it.” Robert pointed out.

“It wasn’t about proving myself. I know I’m good at football. Mikel was happy with his explanation because it meant he wouldn’t have to go looking for the right person but it’s not that simple. People are messy?” He pauses as if debating the word, “People feel messy, emotions are complicated and matches are more.” He stays quiet after that and Robert tries hard not to fidget with his own rings.

He was trying to prove himself. He had done something remarkable with the five in nine minutes record but he wanted the consistency to continue into his efforts with the national team. He needed to prove that he was good enough. 

-  
Warsaw in October seems to hold all the magic for their team. Even if Kuba is on the bench for the majority of the game. He breathes a sigh of relief just the same when the ref blows the whistle. Poland held onto their lead and qualified for the Euro. He can’t pretend it isn’t the work of Robert and the team behind him that led them to this success. It stung that he was going into another European competition four years later without being the captain this time.

But the time in Fiorentina, knowing that nothing would be done, that he was left to his own perseverance to rely on to prepare and atone. It was a challenge that Robert had no part of beyond the space he occupied in the national team.

“If you get sick from being showered in champagne, Bayern will complain.” Artur quickly fled with his bottle at Kuba’s arrival to find another victim or perhaps share the soils with someone else. Robert shook off the stray liquid before leveling an amused look at him, hair still soaked and the smile on his face threatening to be contagious.

“Bayern has beer showers,” He counters breezily.

“It’s October,” _in Poland_ , he mentally tacks on. Robert shrugs. They hadn’t even changed out of their kits and boots yet, standing in a corner of the changing room, a bubble for themselves. Kuba doesn’t know where exactly Lukasz is but he would surely be telling him he was being too dramatic for the occasion and the conversation.

“It’s not that cold. Did you want something?” Robert keeps the same disaffected air, tone light enough to fool anyone else. Kuba couldn’t put into words that he was trying to be better at accepting his faults and letting go was one of the hardest lessons to sink in for him. He had been afraid of what it had all meant: losing the captaincy, feeling anything for his matches with the example of his mother still vividly alive in him, the fear that everything he had worked so hard to become wouldn’t be enough for his country and for his matches.

“You scored thirteen goals.” He had heard the tally earlier. Robert took the strange start without complaint, still watching him attentively. “It’s important to the team-You are important to the team. You are important to them and Poland is important to you.” He ticks his head to the wall, to the stadium full of people still cheering and stamping as they filed out. Robert was a child of Warsaw and that meant more every time they won in their home stadium.

“Is it too late to apologize?” His throat is dry, forcing the words to come out low and scratchy. They are leaning too far into each others space to have privacy. Robert tucks his chin in, shoulder hitching before an unreadable mix of emotions flash across his face, gone as quickly as they appeared, before Kuba could even try to distinguish anything. 

“I couldn’t have scored some of those goals without you. We still need you.” He pokes his chest with a finger. “You are more than a captain, understand? You are Kuba.” Robert rocks back on his heels, serious expression melting back to the exhausted cheer everyone was clinging to in the aftermath of their game. His eyes flicked past him with enough urgency that Kuba turned around without further examining the gratefulness blooming in his chest at Robert’s words.

Lukasz was standing, waiting for them to finish with the arms crossed against his chest immediately going to shake Kuba bodily by the shoulders. 

“Everything good?” Robert laughs,flashing them a genuine smile before making his excuses to shower. Lukasz doesn’t let him go past without getting his hands on him as well, congratulating Robert with a noogie. 

“I think it’s time for that dinner together we never got around to, don’t you?” Lukasz slings his arm around his shoulder. There isn’t any pressure to the suggestion. Lukasz eternally waiting for them to find their way around a bond he had simply accepted as it was. 

“Yeah,” Kuba finally answers as he watches the number nine leave.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:  
> -2007 is when Lukasz' mark came in for both Kuba and Lewy. It was directly related to Lukasz being called up for the NT. You don't feel any sort of sensation when your mark appears on someone else. And Lukasz would've had both his marks by then because Kuba's Mark Event was when his mother died and Lewy's was when his father died.  
> -I hc that Robert had a crush on Lukasz when he came to Dortmund.  
> -I decided against doing a 2016 section but I might do a sequel with those events. (I outlines it but ultimately like the hopeful ending of the 2015 section not being marred by well, the Euro and Kuba's penalty kick.  
> -the left hand/right hand thing derives from the Christian concept of the right hand of god/left hand of god. I almost made it into a romantic soulmate/enemy thing but I liked the compliment/challenge foil more.  
> -You can have multiple marks on one hand! It often is a result of the death of a match or if you still need the right/left influence in your life.
> 
> sorry for all the babble. thanks for reading.


End file.
